ABSTRACT
I’m a businessperson. Since 1992, I’ve run a real estate company focused on sustainable principles and practices. Typical of small companies, I wear numerous hats: crunch numbers and write for our Web site, paint offi ce walls, and negotiate deals. But mostly, I tell stories, such as this one:
Our family business began with a grocery store my grandmother Annie started in Savannah, Georgia, in 1940. After my father Norton fi nished college, he joined the business, growing it into a 14-store supermarket chain. In 1985, our family sold the business but held on to the real estate. At that point, we discovered two things: (a) we had always been in real estate-building stores, warehouses, and an offi ce for our operations-only we had never recognized this fact; (b) we didn’t like real estate, with its tendency to homogenize place and its widespread despoliation of nature. So we decided we either had to exit real estate or envision a different, more restorative approach to the business. The result has been a 20-plus year journey toward sustainability, a journey that continues to this day. My colleagues and I are focused on being both thought and product leaders in sustainable real estate. Our purpose is to leverage our business to be agents of change: to restore our lands and our communities. We look to share our mission and knowledge with anyone willing to listen.
